An Analysis of the Communication Strategies Employed by Learners of English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

Effective communication skills are most searched for by employers within the tourism industry. Therefore, the ways of developing them are a key issue for researchers, communication instructors and Foreign Language (FL) teachers. This research took place at a School of Tourism and Hospitality Management in Barcelona (Spain). The main purpose consisted in examining the evolution of the participants' oral communicative competence in English as a Foreign Language (EFL), enrolled in a 60-hour English course using learning portfolios. Samples of the learners' speech were gathered at the beginning and at the end of the academic period, and analyzed focusing on fluency, self-confidence and creativity as indicators of progress. The utilization of communication strategies (CSs) in the learners' oral production, conceptually grounded on the guidelines provided by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), was one of the main objects of the study. The results show that globally the learners' fluency, self-confidence and creativity increased, and eventually most of them used more communicative strategies than at the beginning of the term.